I'm very proud and excited to announce the inaugural Match Play Championship to be held at Maytag Park in Newton, IA (this has been approved!) Aug 24-25th. The format is going to be a 64 player bracket with the possibility of an 8 player women's only bracket**. This is NOT a single elimination tournament. There will be 3 rounds (18 holes) on Sat and 3 rounds on Sun, however only the final 2 will play the 6th round to determine the champion.

Not everything is set in stone, but I have a pretty good idea on how it's going to work and payout. $40 entry for a total prize pool of $2560. Off the top of my head I believe it broke down to:$500 1st $320 2nd$120 3rd-4th (knocked out in final 4)$60 5th-12th (4 wins via 1 loss bracket)$30 13th-32nd (3 wins)$20 33rd-50th (2 wins)$10 51st-56th (1 win)

As of round 3 there will be 8 0-3s who will be eliminated. 56 players will have at least 1 win and will move onto Sunday. The experience I've had with the Player's Cup is that there was no incentive for Sunday matches so I'm trying to make it so there's something on every match. Otherwise players will leave early which leaves other players with no matchup and that's kind of a rotten deal for their opponent. If/when this event gains some traction I might make the payout a little more top heavy (especially in that 5th-12th range), but since I'm anticipating a large amount of Am players to fill this thing I don't want to make it seem like just a donation to the top few guys. With 38 players finishing with 2-3 wins and getting a good chunk of their money back they get a shot at the big boys and are effectively only paying $10-$20 to do so.

(UPDATED) Who gets to play?!? The top 32 rated players in Iowa (as of July, '13 update) will get automatic invites as well as any Hall of Fame members wishing to play. Once those have been determined the remaining spots will be at large and first come first serve (including out of state players). I'll post paypal info then. Players who are automatically qualified will have 2 weeks to pay to reserve their spot. At the end of that 2 week period any spots that have not been reserved will go to anyone on the waiting list. Hopefully that will give 2 weeks notice for everyone on whether they're in or not.

**Ladies, it works out nicely that 64 players divided by 4 only takes up 16 holes so I'd be happy to work a women's pool into this tournament if there's interest. Who knows, maybe you want to take on the boys head to head, but if you are interested in a ladies only championship I hope someone will get a hold of me to work with me on logistics (such as whether you'd want to play 2 days or just one. With only 8 players it can be done in one day.)

Finally, some logistics. Rounds are tentatively scheduled for 9, 1230, and 4 each day. I'm guessing the average round will take 2.5 hours, however some matches may go to extra holes. This means some players may have very little time for meals between rounds. Players will need to be prepared with snacks and/or lunches in case they only have 20-30 minutes between matches. Other players may be done in as little as 13-14 holes which could mean nearly 2 hours for lunch. This is a tough format to run, but I have a good handle on it and welcome any questions and comments. Again, I'm very excited to kick this off and hope that you all will jump on board!

Last edited by Clue on Fri Jun 14, 2013 6:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

Clue wrote:I'm anticipating a large amount of Am players to fill this thing I don't want to make it seem like just a donation to the top few guys. With 38 players finishing with 2-3 wins and getting a good chunk of their money back they get a shot at the big boys and are effectively only paying $10-$20 to do so.

Those two bits of info have this low rated Am from Newton filling out time-off sheets for that date at work already. Sounds awesome.

This is weird. It's been a whole day and I can't find any pessimism or criticism. Glad you guys are excited, I know I am. Originally I thought there really might only be 4-5 guys that could win it, but now I'm convinced there are over 20. Imagine a sweet 16 of:

Anyone could come out of there, and I'm just doing this off the top of my head. I can think of 5 more guys I could easily throw in there. I wanted to do a mock bracket of all 64, but most people aren't current so there are a lot of people not listed in the current ratings. If we got anywhere near 50 of the top 64 players there would be monster upsets early and often. Holy $hit I can't wait for this...

Clue wrote:This is weird. It's been a whole day and I can't find any pessimism or criticism. Glad you guys are excited, I know I am. Originally I thought there really might only be 4-5 guys that could win it, but now I'm convinced there are over 20. Imagine a sweet 16 of:

Anyone could come out of there, and I'm just doing this off the top of my head. I can think of 5 more guys I could easily throw in there. I wanted to do a mock bracket of all 64, but most people aren't current so there are a lot of people not listed in the current ratings. If we got anywhere near 50 of the top 64 players there would be monster upsets early and often. Holy $hit I can't wait for this...

If I can't play I want to video some of the action. This seems too good to miss!